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browndog56 t1_iyafilc wrote

Battle of Blair Mountain

“Where the lead lies still and the smoke still rises, on the Blair mountainside.”

  • Charles Wesley Godwin, Coal Country
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ShortysTRM t1_iyauzlz wrote

The Bull Moose Express is another wild story from the WV coalfields. It wasn't a huge event, and I don't think anyone died, but firing a machine gun from a company train car into a camp full of families is a bit terrifying.

Sorry, one death: https://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/707

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Sam-Gunn t1_iyb283z wrote

I can't find the story, but years ago I read an article where they relayed a story from a miner encampment around that same time period. During that time they went on strike and the miners expected the company would run another armored train through their encampment. So a bunch of them walked about a mile up the tracks, pulled up the rails and rolled them down an embankment so when the train came through, it couldn't continue to the encampment for the attack, and the rails were too heavy for the mercenaries to bring back up the hill. I'll keep trying to find it though. It was an interesting read.

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